Democracy beyond barrels of guns

President Goodluck Jonathan, Chief of Defence Staff, Kenneth Minimah

One Thursday evening in March 1994. Inside a cab (kabukabu) on Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way, Ikeja, Lagos. This writer, who was then a teacher, was returning home in company with another teacher, Mr. Bade Adeluyi.

When the cab got to the Olowu area of Ikeja, we saw some five soldiers harassing some traders. Curiously on some strange impulse, the soldiers turned to the road and ordered our cab to stop. They ordered Adeluyi and I to come down immediately. They accused us of looking at them while they were drilling the shop owners.

We were marched into the soldiers’ Peugeot 504 and driven towards GRA in Ikeja. Well, we were released after much begging, but not until after we had earned multiple lashes of koboko – horsewhips.

Since that day, the sight of any group of soldiers by the roadside has always mentally transported the writer back to Olowu. One can thus imagine how he felt last Sunday (February 7) evening, when he saw soldiers and military policemen stationed at strategic points on the Third Mainland Bridge, Lagos. Fifteen years into the current democratic dispensation, such a disturbing sight is fast becoming the lot of the polity, with the military becoming so much visible that some may have begun to confuse our democracy with diarchy.

Only on Wednesday, it was reported that soldiers laid siege to the home of the All Progressives Congress Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and to the Imo State Government House. The rationale behind this is still not very clear, though pundits think it is an act of intimidation and a sad remembrance of the jackboot years.

That the drift had hit a scary peak became evident when the National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, and other military chiefs strongly advised – if not ordered – the Independent National Electoral Commission to postpone the February 14 and 28 elections. They said they could not guarantee the safety of the stakeholders. INEC’s Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, said this much when he briefed the media on why the elections had to be delayed. The military’s argument is that it, alongside countries such as Cameroon and Chad, would be busy on a major operation in the North-East, where it is fighting Boko Haram.

What this suggests is that Nigeria’s democracy seems to be flowing out of barrels of guns. After all, situation reports by the military at the end of the six weeks of the operation may still determine the way to go then. Observers smell a kind of sabotage and military conspiracy with the ruling People’s Democratic Party, which had, in various gestures, canvassed the postponement of the polls. As a result, some have likened the military’s decision to an act of betrayal, while others say it is a soft coup.

It is indeed odd that it is soldiers that have to dictate the pace of Nigeria’s democracy. The irony should beat any sensible student of history who knows how hard the country fought to get the military back to the barracks in 1999. The blame, however, some still feel, may not be that of the security outfits. They would rather blame the Federal Government and President Goodluck Jonathan in particular, who, as the commander-in-chief, dictates the direction the forces go.

Those who genuinely love this country should advise the President to regulate the situation as there is a lot of danger in a militarised democracy. When democracy kisses soldiers in the market place, only the gods can predict the type of children the romance will bring. In that kind of relationship, you may also not know who the husband is, and who the wife is, because the person riding on the back of a tiger may have the last laugh, he may not have the lasting laugh.

Ultimately, it is the military that will save itself. Even when a President is reeling down wrong orders on military chiefs, they should be bold enough to tell him the truth. Where they fail to do so, they could share in the consequence of their blind obedience and connivance.

In this global order, both presidents and military commanders may incur the wrath of the International Criminal Court if something terrible goes wrong. After the Second World War, the Allied Forces did not spare some of the German leaders they tried, despite pleas that they were obeying orders from the head of state. Some military chiefs that served Egyptian former Head of State, Hosni Mubarak, also had a taste of this.

It is good that the NSA has stressed that elections will hold as rescheduled, with the Director of Army Information, Maj. Gen. Chris Olukolade, also noting on Wednesday that the military will not be partial in whatever role it will play in the elections.

Above all, the military owes Nigerians and itself the honour to make March 28 and April happen in a conscientious, peaceful and orderly manner.